If you every fancied yourself as a bit of a spy then you’ll love mystery shopping.
Mystery shopper jobs are basically undercover jobs without the risks that you see in secret agent movies. It’s a popular method of market research or internal check-up within a company.
A mystery shopper job means that one pretends to be a simple buyer, in order to see how the salespersons deal with customers. Are the employees of a company fast and precise? Are they polite and helpful? Are they competent, do they introduce the products or services properly? Do they keep the store clean and neat?
Mystery shopper jobs include buying products, asking questions, complaining, and, in the meantime, measuring the quality of service the salespersons provide. After that, the undercover buyer gives feedback to the mystery shopping company or directly to the managers who have hired them. The managers analyse the results, gaining insight on how things work in their enterprise, and, using the results, marketing teams can find ways to improve customer service.
Mystery shopping companies or clients may instruct buyers to be demanding and specific, in order to see how employees handle such buyers; they may tell which department to visit and what to ask – these arranged situations are called scenarios. Shoppers receive about £3-£12.50 for each shop they visit. Mystery shopping programs do not take much time and effort, one does not need any specific qualification or previous experience. Mystery shoppers only have to be discreet and perceptive. They must provide the name of the salesperson they have met – they can read it on their badge or they should ask it. One can sign up for free at a mystery shopping company, they can apply online. Mystery shopping program is flexible, buyers can have a daily job or can be students while doing their mystery shopper jobs, but they must give feedback within 24 hours after visiting a store. These files are fill-in-the-form documents or multiple choice questions.
Even after paying tax, a mystery shopper can have a daily income of around £60 for working about six to eight hours a day. They can keep some of the items they have pretended to buy, even expensive ones like electronic devices.
However, after the recession and economic crisis, many companies switched to less expensive methods like online surveys – but still there are plenty of mystery shopping companies and chances.
Mystery shopping is not restricted to shops and stores; secret shoppers can appear at banks, restaurants, hotels as well. This is how managers can measure customer satisfaction.
Mystery shoppers get paid for giving feedback on buyer experiences.
To keep on the ethic side, mystery shopping is about enhancing customer service and improving customer satisfaction, and it must not be about punishing employees who received bad reviews. However, it does happen – rather often – that employers fire some workers because negative feedback given by mystery shoppers.
Here you can find a couple of tried-and-true companies that offer mystery customer jobs:
Marketforce.com
Checkoutuk.co.uk
Jksmysteryshopping.co.uk
Storecheckers.co.uk
Retail-maxim.co.uk
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